Eminent Chancellor, on behalf of the Council and Senate, I present to you Harold Charles Moss, agrologist, scientist and scholar.
Born at Barry, South Wales in 1899, Harold Moss emigrated to Canada with his family in 1908, settling on a farm near Strasbourg, Sask. He received the Diploma in Agriculture and the BSA degree from Saskatchewan, and the MSc degree from the University of Alberta.
Harold Moss started his professional career traversing parts of this province on horseback, working as a Land Inspector for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Later, he was to traverse all areas of the province as a soil surveyor. Few areas in Saskatchewan have since escaped the close scrutiny of his eye, the stab of his spade, or the jottings of his pen.
In 1929, Harold Moss joined the Saskatchewan Soil Survey as an employee of the Canada Department of Agriculture. From 1935-1959, as Senior Pedologist, he was responsible for the active direction of the soil survey programs and coordination of the research activities of this unit. Since his retirement in 1959, he has served as a Research Associate, editor and consultant for the recently formed Saskatchewan Institute of Pedology.
Thirty—three years of study, research and active publication relating to the classification, genesis and mapping of the soil, Saskatchewan’s most important natural resource, have earned Harold Moss an international reputation as one of Canada’s outstanding pedologists. The many soil maps and reports which bear his name will continue to supply the basic soil information required by agriculturalists, foresters, engineers and workers in many other disciplines for many years to come. His ability to translate the technical results of soil investigations into everyday language has contributed to the wide acceptance and use of these publications. His work, initiated with the late Dr. John Mitchell on the rating of Saskatchewan soils, has provided the physical base for assessment of rural lands. Through his close association with the Department of Soil Science over the last 40 years, he has contributed greatly to the teaching and training of both undergraduate and graduate students of Soil Science and other Agricultural Sciences. His efforts in no small measure have played an important part in the evolution of Pedology as a full—fledged scientific discipline in Canada.
A charter member of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists, he is a life member of the Agricultural Institute of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, and Honorary member of the Saskatchewan Agricultural Graduates
Association and the Saskatoon Land Inspectors’ Association. To students who have worked with him, to his associates and to agriculturalists of this province, he is recognized as Saskatchewan’s “Dean of Pedology”.
Eminent Chancellor, I present to you Harold Charles Moss, and ask that you confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.